


prologue: the fates are vicious and they're cruel

by lco123



Series: Wicked Little Town: An "Ezra is A" AU [1]
Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ezra is A, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 19:54:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10225922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lco123/pseuds/lco123
Summary: Aria,Spencer writes,I really wanted to be wrong about this one.The prologue to a series exploring a different version of the show from Shadow Play onward. What if Ezra really was A? Eventual Sparia, Vandermarin and Emison.





	

**Author's Note:**

> And here, another canon-divergent AU! I know I'm not alone in wishing the show hadn't walked back the erzA reveal in season 4. For a long time I've wondered how Sparia could have blossomed in the wake of Ezra being A, so this fic will attempt to explore that. 
> 
> This will basically rewrite 4b/5a with that in mind, remixing elements from canon. The timeline may be a little confusing (surprise, surprise), but if you begin by imagining that this picks up from the aftermath of Shadow Play and goes AU from there, it should make sense. 
> 
> There will be individual stories for Sparia, Vandermarin and Emison, but this prologue will be important to each of them, which is why I'm posting it separately.

When they look through the Montgomery house window and see Aria and Ezra kissing— _why, Aria, after everything?_ Spencer thinks, but doesn’t verbalize, even to Hanna and Emily—Spencer realizes that they’re going to need a lot more proof. She knew it would be difficult before, but now…

She demands that they get their ducks in a row. They need evidence, the irrefutable kind, something that Ezra can’t explain his way out of. They need a trap. 

_Don’t look at the book, look at the pages._

The pages seem to indicate that A or Ezra (maybe they’re one in the same now) wanted to cover up a spot where he used to meet Ali. Spencer compares the pictures from her phone to the diary three times, and realizes that it’s Ambrose Pavilion. They set up a sting, Emily letting slip to Ezra where “Ali” will be, and Spencer buys another three pills from Brenda so she can stay up all night planning. Hanna keeps giving her weird looks, and Spencer knows, she _knows_ that this isn’t good, has enough vague recollections of last time to feel that she’s losing control. But she doesn’t have time to sleep. And if she doesn’t have time to sleep, she certainly doesn't have time to handle _this_.

There’s only one thing to handle right now.

It’s not a perfect plan, but nothing in Spencer’s life is going perfectly right now, so at least it’s on message. They don’t tell Aria what they’re doing. Not just yet. Spencer knows she won’t be able to deal with it. She remembers what it’s like, when your safe place to land becomes your most dangerous.

It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s a good enough plan until it isn’t. Ezra doesn’t show. Someone else does, a girl wearing a blonde wig. Hanna manages to grab her arm before they’re kicked out, rolling her eyes when Mona Vanderwaal smiles back at her like the cat who ate the canary.

“What are you doing here?” Spencer demands.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Mona replies with a smirk, but there’s something behind her eyes. Fear. Not the fake kind.

“We thought you’d be Ezra,” Emily tells her.

Mona stiffens visibly, and there’s no performance in that. “Why would you think that?”

“Because,” Spencer starts, but she still can’t say it, so Emily supplies, “he might be A.”

“Where’s Aria?” Mona asks, eyes darkening, and that’s when Spencer realizes: if Ezra isn’t here, then he’s almost definitely with _her_.

Hanna’s sent out an S.O.S. before Spencer’s even completed that thought. The lack of a response is terrifying, and Spencer is paralyzed by it. She can tell the others are waiting for instruction, everyone accept Mona, who’s doing something on her phone. 

Spencer mulls the options over as quickly as her addled brain will let her: his apartment, no he wouldn’t take her there. The school? No, no. His Ravenswood apartment is already up for rent, so he couldn’t be there.

“The cabin!” she announces, nearly at the same moment that Mona nods with authority.

“You’re right,” she confirms. “I have the coordinates of Aria’s phone.”

“How?” Emily asks.

Mona shrugs. “Do you really want to know?”

Spencer doesn’t, in this moment. She just wants to get to Aria. She considers calling the police but then thinks about every time that’s gone so wrong for them. She wishes she believed in God enough to pray; she does it anyway, hopes that she’s done enough good for it to matter, knows in her heart that at least Aria has.

Mona drives. She’s the only one with steady enough hands, and even then Spencer knows she’s a little rattled. They tag-team interrogate in the car, learn that Mona’s being blackmailed, that she hasn’t known for sure if Ezra is A but she’s pretty strongly suspected it.

“There are things I could still go to jail for,” she tells them. “So I’ve been helping him. But not with anything big.”

“Wilden?” Hanna asks. “Was that really Cece?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Mona replies. “But Ezra has information on everyone. I figure she’s being blackmailed too."

“Where's his info from?” Emily asks.

Mona whips around to face her, incredulous, before turning her eyes back to the road. “You haven’t figured it out?”

Spencer’s stomach sloshes at that comment. “What?”

“Ezra’s N.A.T,” Mona states.

“He was helping Jason and Ian?” Emily murmurs.

Mona scoffs. “No. He wasn’t helping them. He _hired_ them.”

The hidden camera in his hallway. The pictures. Every moment he was there when he didn’t need to be.

 _We See All._ The pieces were there all along. She just couldn’t let herself put them together.

“He was the benefactor,” Spencer breathes.

“Bingo, Spence,” Mona says.

“Can you drive a little faster?” Hanna asks, voice thick with tension.

The text comes when they’re about fifteen minutes away. Aria’s own S.O.S. Mona speeds the last ten miles— _really_ speeds, so that Spencer has to grip her door handle to keep from vomiting. It wouldn’t take much, right now.

The four of them lurch out of the car, and Spencer’s heart is in her throat. She thinks about Alison, wishes in some weird sort of backwards way that she was here with them.

Aria is on the front porch, and Spencer can finally catch her breath when she sees her. It’s dark out, but there’s a light hanging up above. Just enough to illuminate the tear streaks on Aria’s face. She’s sitting on the steps, leaning up against the railing. She doesn’t say anything as they approach. 

It’s all a little too familiar for Spencer.

_No name? Yep. Jane Doe. No I.D., no cell phone, no keys, nothing._

“Aria,” she says gently. “Where is Ezra?”

Aria blinks up at her. Despite the wetness on her cheeks, there are no tears in her eyes.

“Ezra is A,” she says tonelessly. She pauses, staring blankly at Spencer. “He _was_ A.”

“ _Was_?” Hanna echoes.

Aria nods. Spencer knows they’re not going to get much more from her tonight. They’ll put her in the car, look around the property, confirm what they can and get the story straight before calling the police. If Ezra's really A, they have nothing to lose anymore.

It isn’t a perfect plan, but it’s what they’ve got to work with now.

Spencer takes a breath. She thinks about taking another pill. She doesn’t.

It all checks out. Alison can come home, because A is dead. _A is dead._ Fallen from the ski lift after a chase through the woods and a struggle. Aria found it all: the cameras, the pictures, evidence of his relationship with Ali. It doesn’t take much to see what happened. She confronted him, he tried to kill her, one thing lead to another.

Spencer was looking for proof, but Aria found it, straight from the horse’s mouth. Maybe the only way it could be, in the end.

_No woman has ever been able to warn another woman about a man._

It starts to rain on the drive home. Spencer is in the back of a squad car, but she doesn’t feel scared anymore, she just feels tired. So damn tired. The last of her energy was spent at the cabin, there’s nothing left now. Her mom picks her up from the station and Spencer tells her some version of the story. It’s a lot easier when there’s just one bad guy.

The pills come out, too; Veronica pushes and Spencer doesn’t have much fight left in her, not even when the topic of rehab comes up. She does protest when her phone is taken away, but Veronica lets her write an email to each of her friends before she goes. It won’t be long—two weeks, maximum. A Hastings can’t be mysteriously absent for any length of time without raising suspicion.

She writes to Emily and Hanna first, but doesn’t even know how to begin to write to Aria. She thinks about the voicemail she didn’t leave.

 _If I’m right then that would just break your heart, and if I’m wrong then you’re gonna hate me forever. And that would really, really break_ my _heart._

Spencer sets her head in her hands. _Aria, I’m sorry_ , she types before deleting it. 

 _Aria_ , _I hope you’re doing okay._ No, that’s not right. She closes her eyes, considers how she really feels.

 _Aria_ , she writes, _I really wanted to be wrong about this one._

Spencer hits send before she can second-guess herself one more time.


End file.
